The Marauders and the Phoenix's Tears
by Ice Jazz Elleth
Summary: Sometimes you make mistakes. And sometimes there's a high price to pay to change that. But at least there's a price to pay, right? That you can change the mistake... The Marauders find this out the hard way in their second year of Hogwarts. when secrets run amok with the students and Remus' life is hanging in the balance.


Holidays with friends often offer a lot of fun and there was one such holiday planned for the four boys who liked to call themselves The Marauders. James' parents owned a villa in France and had offered to have the four boys around for a week. They had all traveled over via floo powder and already they had enjoyed the weather, which was hot and sunny. It was the summer holidays just after their first year and the boys were grateful that they had all been able to meet up before the start of term. Only a few weeks had left them feeling withdrawn from each other (even with the constant owl posting) until James' parents had decided to offer them all a holiday. They had been desperate to get James to go out as he was refusing to even leave his room for anything other than meals and the toilet. All because he didn't want to miss getting his next letter.

The action of the Potters had been a wise one and now all boys were happy and James was no longer holing himself up in his room. Sirius had some difficulty convincing his parents to let him go and it turned out that Sirius had lied through his teeth to get here. He had told his parents that he was going on an educational visit to France as part of an exchange offered exclusively to exemplary students. He had even forged Hogwarts letters and permission slips as well as those of the family he was supposedly staying with. Of course, he did his research and made sure it was a pure blood family but one which his family would not be able to get the address for. Instead, he had left them the address of the Potter's holiday house as the place they should send any letters to. So far, he had none.

Peter had no problem getting his parents to agree. They were delighted that their son was, for the first time, willing to go somewhere with his friends. Peter had always been fairly shy and did not make friends too easily. At times it seemed like he was afraid of his own shadow. Remus' tale was similar, but differed slightly in the fact that his parents felt conflict. They had kept Remus at home in order to keep him safe from the others (they mainly lived in muggle areas and in his younger years, they had worried that he would perform basic magic in front of Muggles, the Lupins claimed) but they also felt like their only son should be playing with others. At first they had declined, saying that they were busy but when Mrs Potter changed the date, they could not refuse and Remus had been delighted to spend a week in France with his friends.

So the four boys all met up, delighted to be together once more. There was a lot of disagreement about what they should do on their first day, though.

"I want to go to the sea." Sirius declared loudly as he lay in the sun, getting as much of the sun on his skin.

"I think we should go and visit the local wizarding community. After all, you did tell you mother that you were on an exchange visit." Remus said softly, sitting crossed legged under the shade of the building's overhang.

"Boring. I already speak fluent French and I can look up all the history I need to know. The experience will be the same as me going to Diagon Alley." Sirius retorted.

"What about going for a walk, there's a really good muggle ice-cream shop not too far away and the walk is great fun. There's a forest and absolutely nothing dangerous in it!" James said, already knowing much about the area having come here almost once every year.

"Ice-cream can wait." Was the reply Sirius gave as he rolled over, allowing the sun to reach his back.

"So can the sea," This time, Remus' voice was so soft that James who was pacing between the sun and the shade almost didn't hear it. "What do you think, Peter?" This time the Marauder spoke louder, turning his gaze towards Peter who was sitting with his feet in the swimming pool.

"Me?" He squeaked, having been oblivious to the conversation that was going on.

"He's asking about what you want to do today, Pete." Sirius's words were muffled as he spoke, still lying on his stomach.

"Oh, well, I'm good with whatever." Peter gave a smile as he looked around at the faces. He simply enjoyed hanging out with them and wasn't confident enough to suggest that they go swimming in the pool, which was what he really wanted to do.

"Then we go to the sea!" Declared Sirius, sitting up in one swift movement which involved eloquently turning his body. James noticed that Remus seemed to frown slightly at this idea and the black haired boy paused, running a hand through his hair. Maybe Remus didn't like the sun that much? The boy was certainly staying under the shade and looking out of sorts. An earlier conversation had brought up the fact that none of them had brought sun-cream of any kind and Remus did look like the kind of person who would burn.

"Let's save the sea for another day. It won't go anywhere, either, Sirius. We can go to town and get the ice-cream and some sun-cream. There's a wizarding community there as well. I think they do excellent sun-cream, if I remember correctly. There's one for people who burn easily and it says it makes them shine like the moon!" He declared with a laugh as he looked around at his friends, trying to see how Remus would respond. That didn't seem to light his mood either.

"None of us burn so easily that we need all the light reflected off us, do we?" He asked, noting that Remus seemed slightly relieved at that remark.

"I want to tan!" Was Sirius' immediate reply as he thumped back to the ground, giving a little 'ow' as he found out that falling back on the ground was not the best of ideas.

"I burn a bit but not too much." Peter admitted as he splashed his feet in the pool. "But its easier to burn in water. Does the place do waterproof sun-cream?"

"Yep! They do everything. Well, a lot of sun-cream and other stuff like that." James replied, sounding proud enough to be the owner.

"Pharmaceutical items, then." Remus informed James who gave a nod.

"What Remus said. So, let's go get the cream and we'll go to the sea tomorrow, Sirius. You don't want to burn instead of tan." James' words were good natured as he spoke.

"Do you burn, Remus?" Peter pipped up, noting that Remus had not answered James' early question.

"I don't know," Remus admitted. "I've never been to a climate hotter than Britain. But I've never burnt at home, even during the summer."

"Then you're better than me. I've burnt at the height of summer." Peter replied, suddenly taking his feet out of the pool and splashing James who had passed by close to him.

"Don't take all the water out of the pool before we've even got to go swimming!" James protested and his voice seemed to snap at Peter who shrunk away.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to splash you."

"Don't worry about James, Pete. He's worrying too much. It's not like one day at the beach is going to have us all nicely cooked like lobsters." Sirius replied with a chuckle.

"I'm with James about going to get some cream. It's better safe than sorry." Remus piped in and Peter looked between his friends. If he supported Sirius' idea, then it would be two against two. If he went with James and Remus' idea then it would be three against one. It was James who had invited him and with a sigh, Peter made up his mind.

"I agree with James and Remus. Besides, if its swimming that you want then we can go in the pool later." Peter suggested.

"I want to see the sea. I've never had the chance." Sirius replied, looking slightly dejected that they had gone against his suggestion. Remus was often easily won by actions such as these and his lips pressed together as a look of torn conflict flickered over his face. Luckily for him, James came to the rescue.

"We'll go tomorrow. The best beach is a bit of a distance anyway. We'd need my parents to apparate us and I'm sure they want a rest. The town's just a walk away and you can have a look at the sea from a distance. That fine with you, Sirius?"

"Very well. Guessing I have to put my shirt back on for this walk?" He said good naturedly.

"Of course, you'd make too many girls faint otherwise." James replied, trying to keep a serious face but falling.

"Yes, that would be a bad thing," Sirius grinned, casting a forlorn look at his shirt. In fact, the shirt was borrowed from James as Sirius had no muggle clothes of his own and the robes that his mother had shoved at him for the trip to France would certainly attract attention.

"I'm going to get a tan line." He grumbled, pulling the shirt on over his head.

"Yes, heaven forbid that the mighty Sirius Black get so dreadful a thing as a tan line!" James said with a laugh.

"James, I'm serious. It would be a big problem." He laughed lightly, letting the others know that his grumbling had all been good natured.

"Brilliant. Then we are all settled. I'll just go tell Mum and get some money." James said, hurrying inside before Sirius could open his mouth and tell James that he could pay for things.

"But... I can pay..." He said, looking after the figure that had already disappeared inside.

"I think he feels like he needs to be looking after us. After all, we are his guests." Remus said, aware that Sirius liked to pay for himself. "It's probably part of his honour or something like that." In all fairness Remus was thankful that James had immediately offered to pay. Remus himself was short on money - both muggle and wizarding. Most of the clothes he had with him was second hand as they had to quickly buy summer wear for the hotter climate of the south of France. Still, there was some guilt that he was prepared to so readily accept the help of his more well off friends.

"It's probably for the best. My parents wouldn't let me take too much money in case I loose it." Peter added.

"Yeah, but I brought loads of money with me." Sirius declared, sounding happier than he should.

"Smuggled, more like." James said, emerging from the house with a bag around him.

"Oh, very fetching, Jamesette." Sirius said with a laugh while James gave a frown towards Sirius.

"Hey, it's Mum's belief that I cannot carry around money in my pockets and it needs to be kept safe in a bag." James protested as he moved to stand next to Remus who rose.

"So, are we going, then?"

"Yep. Everything is all good to go. Mum also said we should buy something for the mosquitoes. We don't seem so prepared this time. Possibly someone's fault for being busy in fifteen days time." James said, giving a glance towards Remus, his tone and body language obviously showing that he was joking. Remus simply pretended to look innocent.

"Wonder who that could be." He said, with a soft laugh.

"You always have lots of things going on. It's so not fair." Sirius said.

"Not my fault. Guess everyone just likes me more." Remus said cheerfully, going over to Peter who was about to try prod a cactus. The boy had never seen a plant such as that before and he was curious to see if the spikes could actually hurt.

"I wouldn't touch those if I were you, Peter. They do hurt." Remus warned, moving the boy's hand away from the plant.

"Sorry!" He squeaked and Remus gave him a smile.

"It's no problem. Just don't want you to get hurt. Are you ready to go?" Remus replied.

"Yep!"

"Well, cacti are certainly no Whomping Willow but if you told me there was a more dangerous plant than a cactus when I was younger, I wouldn't have believed you." James replied with an air of wisdom.

"Did you try to poke it and ended up almost getting a spike through your eye?" Asked Sirius innocently.

"Sirius, don't talk lightly about that." Remus said, remembering that incident around the willow all too well.

"And no, I didn't," James replied. "I simply fell in."

"Ouch." Remus' sympathised with James.

"Bleh, they can't be that bad." Sirius shrugged. "So, which way are we heading, Captain Potter?"

"Well, follow me, First Mate Sirius." James replied, putting on a pirate accent.

"Don't tell me that you're going to play pirates." Remus muttered, following the James and Sirius as Peter ran to catch up.

"We cannot tell you that, for we are indeed pirates." Sirius replied.

"What can I be? What can I be?" Peter asked as he wiggled his way between James and Sirius.

"You can be my cabin boy." James said, giving Peter a pat on the back as the three tried to walk along the pavement all next to each other.

"Hey! I want a cabin boy!" Sirius protested, falling off the curb.

"Tough, I'm the Captain." James responded.

"Well, I have Remus!" Sirius responded, taking a step back so he was next to Remus before throwing his arms around the boy in a hug. Remus smiled good naturedly and moved towards the wall that stood besides the pavement, making sure that Sirius had enough room.

"But I'm the captain! Only I can have a cabin boy!" James protested, turning around and walking backwards while Peter ended up nervously casting glances in front of James in case there was something to trip the boy on.

"Well, Remus needs a job, doesn't he." Sirius declared, releasing Remus from his hug.

"If your not careful, he'll get your job." James laughed.

"I want Sirius' job." Peter said, placing a hand on James to keep him out of some dog poop.

"Fine, you can be first mate, Remus can be my cabin boy and Sirius can be our prisoner!" James said, pirate accent now dropped.

"What happens if I don't want to be anyone's cabin boy?" Remus asked.

"You would deny the honour to be my cabin boy?" Sirius asked, sounding affronted just at the same time that James said exactly the same thing, sounding shocked. Remus gave a laugh at that and James turned back around to walk forwards as Peter had just had to tug him out of the way of walking into an older lady.

Needless to say, this conversation continued for a while until it was eventually decided that Remus could be captain, after originally being Sirius' Cabin boy but defeating the entire crew and thus rising up the ranks (this had been James' enthusiastic view, while Remus had simply tried to keep quiet). It was then decided that he would have Peter as his first mate and that James and Sirius after a while of being Cabin boys would desert and get their own ship where James would be the captain. Having reached this conclusion they had been about to move on to the topic of which ship would win in a battle when they had reached the entrance to the wizarding world, which they all enjoyed. They had to climb over a wall and then twist the nose of the wizard on the fountain. A secret door did exist for older wizards who didn't want to do the leaping around, but the boys had literally leapt at the chance to scale a wall.

The wizarding community in France was in itself, fascinating. Sirius had started to really enjoy himself as he started speaking French to everyone he could, demanding that they visit every shop possible. He also ended up correcting several of the locals. Apparently their French was not up to scratch, despite having been born there. The Marauders had simply stared at Sirius as he confidently corrected the older wizards and witch before calmly moving on as if he did this every day. When one of the wizards had started to talk to the rest in French (clearly annoyed with Sirius' corrections), the boy had reappeared from a French shop - already with some French chocolate - and managed to convince the wizard to leave them alone. As the wizard left with many apologies, Sirius handed out chocolate before speaking to them. At this point, Peter burst into tears. He had been struggling enough with a French man complaining at him and Sirius' addressing them in French had simply been too much.

"Er..." Sirius frowned, looking like he was searching for the right word for a second as Remus placed a comforting hand on Peter and rubbed his shoulders. James just blinked.

"Sorry, Pete. Got a little over Frenched. Mother taught me and drove it into me head. I've also got Latin and Ancient Greek in there as well. I had to read Les Miserables out loud to her, in the native tongue! Luckily I didn't have to do the same with The Iliad. I lied about reading the Latin text she had given to me. Can't even remember the title."

"Wow... That's a lot of languages. How does it fit inside your head?" James asked.

"With difficulty. Anyhow, I've forgotten what we came here for. That's what I asked before Peter started crying."

"Sun-cream. It's this way." James said, glad to be taking the lead once more. Meanwhile, Remus was trying to encourage Peter to start eating his chocolate telling the boy that it would be good for his shock. After a few seconds Peter numbly started to nibble on the food before taking a bite and colour started to return to his face.

The rest of the journey passed uneventfully, with no more tears or large amounts of spoken French language. They got ice-creams from the muggle shop on their way back and this time James had ordered as Sirius had become shy was he was taken away from his usual environment of magic users. Then they had returned to the house and had stripped off their clothes to go swimming in the pool. Sirius completely forgot about the sun-cream and had dived straight in as soon as he had put his trunks on. James and Peter took longer to get changed while Remus had read the sun-cream bottle three times before James took it to add cream to himself before handing it to Peter. Remus had been reading the English and had been trying to figure out the French from that.

"You coming in, Remus?" James asked, noting that Remus was still not changed.

"Um, I guess." Remus replied, sounding slightly unsure and once again James frowned but said nothing, following Peter into the pool. Peter and Sirius were fighting over the floating hippocampi.

"Is Remus joining us?" Sirius asked, looking up and giving Peter the chance to snatch the hippocampi from him.

"I don't know. Maybe he isn't used to swimming. He seems to be delaying it." James said and that was all that was said on the matter for in a minute, Remus appeared. They had been intending on going out to check on him and he had only arrived just before they were about to pull themselves out.

"What took you so long?" Sirius asked, swimming backwards as Remus cautiously investigated the pool as if it might bite him.

"I had to find my trunks. I think I miss placed them." Remus replied, having circled the pool and keeping a fair distance from the three boys who were swimming alongside the edge now. There were two stairs to the pool, one a simple ladder into the deep end (which was three Sirius deep) and a set of proper steps just towards the shallow end of the middle. If one went off the bottom of these steps it was the depth of James and plus Sirius' head. The shallow end was deep enough that Peter had to swim to keep his head above the surface (or at least turn his face up to the sky if he wanted to balance on his feet). Remus placed a foot onto the first step and then brought the other foot down. Then he went down another and sat.

"It's a lot better if you dive straight in. Then you don't have to slowly adept." James suggested but Remus shook his head.

"It's a bit of a shock," He said, eyeing the dripping Sirius who had climbed back up onto the edge to dive in.

"Shouldn't we have adult supervision or something like that?" He asked, glancing around.

"It'll be fine. I've gone in loads of times without Mum or Dad. Pool's enchanted to lower the water levels if someone faints or something like that. Dad got fed up with me sneaking in when I was younger and child proofed it." James replied, swimming backstroke. Peter was swimming near Remus but kept a meter away as the ripples seemed to worry him. Still, James' words had put some courage in Remus' heart, they assumed, as he took a few more steps until he was standing with the water lapping at his stomach.

"Don't do much swimming?" James asked, pausing and treading water as Sirius swam underwater, aiming for James' legs.

"Not really." Remus admitted as Sirius burst up, running out of air just before he reaches James.

"What was that?" He asked, sensing that something important had been said.

"Remus doesn't know how to swim." James responded before Remus could speak.

"I know how to... the basics at least. I'm just not sure if I can." Remus defended, looking a little pale, although they couldn't be sure if he had just put on extra sun-cream. Carefully, Sirius swam up to Remus and sat down on a step above him so their heads were level. His gaze slipped to Remus' shoulder and a frown pulled at the boy's face. Remus, noticing the boy's gaze shied away and took another step into the pull, drawing a sudden breath as the water level rose to his shoulders.

"What was that?" Sirius asked, taking a step forwards and reaching to touch something on Remus' shoulder.

"I fell out of a tree when I was younger. Startled a badger. I'd fallen asleep in the tree." Remus hurriedly said and Sirius gave a shrug.

"You always seem to end up sleepy. Should stop reading at night, I'm sure that's the cause." Sirius responded, leaning back as Remus took hold of the side. When Remus didn't take any further movement into the pool, Sirius dived away and went after Peter who squealed with delight as he found himself lifted out of the water by Sirius. James grinned and kicked out with his back feet, splashing Sirius who laughed and sank under the water to avoid the oncoming attack of water. Peter saw his chance and leaped off the floating hippocampie (which he had managed to keep hold of until this moment) and dived under, grabbing hold of Sirius and managing to pull him away from the hippocampi which James then claimed. Soon after, Remus joined them in the shallow end, having pulled himself along the side and was watching them with interest. After a few minutes he had even begun practicing some of their swimming movements but never going more than half a meter from the side and keeping where his feet could touch the bottom (being slightly taller than Peter, this was no difficulty).

James, happy with this development from Remus went out for a victory lap on the hippocampie while Sirius swam after him, using breast stroke and easily over taking. Peter stayed by Remus and went through some swimming movements that he knew. Peter had gone to swimming lessons when he was younger and was glad to help teach Remus. Before taking lessons, Peter had been dreadful and sunk like a stone. Now he loved water as if he had been born in it. While this was happening, James and Sirius had set up a competition to see who could hold their breath for the longest, diving down and trying to remain under. They had come across the problem that if they sat cross legged in the water they simply rose back up and it had taken them about a minute to realise that they should probably just try to keep down by swimming. During this competition, Peter reclaimed the hippocampi and offered it to Remus, who refused, saying he was going to continue practicing in the shallow end. James and Sirius then noticed the absence of the hippocampi and both went after Peter who did his best to keep away from them but failed in the attempt.

"Hey, that's not fair, it's two against one!" He complained as James managed to get Peter off. The splash covered Sirius who looked slightly put out that James had managed to mount the float before himself.

"You've both had a longer go than me!" He protested, now working with Peter to try and get James off.

"This is my home." James said with a smile as wide as the Cheshire Cat.

"I'm a guest!" Sirius said.

"And me too" Peter added.

"Tough. I'll let you two fight over it once I have decided I have enough." James said, twisting off the hippocampie anyway and swimming over to the side. He was the host and he was willing to go without the float if it meant that much to Sirius and Peter. Sirius had meanwhile quickly got on top of it and was outpacing Peter, even though Sirius could only use his legs while Peter had full use of his arms and legs. James laughed as he watched the two move across the pool for about five minutes before Sirius grew bored and slipped off the float, sweeping Peter back from the hippocampi. At this point, Peter seemed to loose interest in the object and he swam over to James who was practicing diving and keeping close to the bottom. Sirius joined in and after a few attempts they all decided that Peter was the best at this competition. Then as they rose, Sirius cast a glance over to Remus who was a bit further out, still able to stand in the pool and he gave a nod to the more stationary of the four. James grinned and gave Sirius a thumbs up and the two boys silently sunk underwater and swam towards the unsuspecting Remus. Peter hovered in the water, unsure what to do when a sudden yelp followed by screams spurred him into action.

James and Sirius had decided to help Remus with his swimming by carefully grabbing their friend and taking him further towards the deep end. Their help would have been perfect if Remus had been willing to go along with it but terror seemed to strike at him and the boy was wildly struggling, his arms thrashing out of the grip of his friends and his legs kicking out at them. The screams had brought out the Potters although there was nothing that they could do as a battered James and Sirius floated in the water while Remus had managed to get to the edge and pull himself out, shaking. Or they assumed that until they saw Peter swimming by the edge and the discarded hippocampi float, that was now on its side.

"Remus, are you OK. What happened?" Asked Mrs Potter, hurrying over to the boy and placing a towel around him. Remus had already flung himself a metre away from pool and he pulled the towel around him but did not speak.

"We were trying to help him to swim and thought that he might learn better if we took him out a bit deeper. We had hold of him." James said, rubbing his arm which had somehow managed to get cut by Remus' nails as he had pulled away. Sirius was rubbing his chest which had been kicked with more strength than they thought Remus was capable of.

"James, I thought you knew better than to be so disrespectful." Mrs Potter said and James looked away, shamefully.

"We're sorry, Mrs Potter. We honestly thought it would help." Sirius said, wincing as he swam forwards to the edge. Peter had meanwhile got out and placed a hand on Remus' quivering form.

"Remus?" Asked Mr Potter, looking with concern towards the shivering boy.

The only response he got was a dull look as Remus raised his head to look at James' father.

"Remus?" James asked, repeating his father's question as he got out of the pool.

"Don't go anywhere." Peter said, giving Remus a pat before rushing inside and coming out with chocolate and placing it in Remus' hand. The boy blinked as he notice what was in his hand and he took a slow bite and then another.

"Remus?" Mrs Potter asked, concern flowering her voice as she came closer to the boy.

"Yes, M... Mrs Potter. Just... a bit... nervous of being away from the... ground." he said, a shudder passing across his face as he curled up and took another bite of chocolate. Sirius returned with more chocolate and placed it in Remus' shadow.

"We're sorry, Rem. You should have told us." Sirius' arm made its way around Remus while James hung around nervously.

"Do you want to go home, Remus?" Mr Potter asked, moving to stand between Remus and the pool in case the sight of a clear way to the pool disturbed him.

"No. I'm good." Remus said, his voice shaking as he finished off the chocolate and moved onto the bar that Sirius had brought out (this chocolate was indeed the chocolate that Sirius had brought for himself).

"Let's not go to the sea tomorrow." Sirius had suggested.


End file.
